A recent joint drill examining contingency planning for the city’s casinos has attained the Government’s goals of testing such measures and testing the communication between public departments and gaming operators in the event of emergencies.
The drill, code-named “Wolf Hunting”, took place in the early hours today (23 January) in a casino property located in Cotai. It was Macao’s first ever large-scale, joint contingency drill in a casino.
The exercise was part of the Government’s efforts to strengthen coordination between public departments and the city’s gaming operators, in order to optimise response measures in case of unexpected incidents in casinos and to guarantee the safety of residents and tourists and their respective property.
Today’s drill involved a series of events relating to an armed robbery simulation in public areas of a casino property. In the simulation, a group of four people robbed a ‘passer-by’ and harmed two other people, when they were intercepted by casino security officers. The ‘robbers’ later held a ‘hostage’ at one of the VIP rooms of the casino and claimed to be in possession of an explosive device.
The contingency drill lasted around two hours and approximately 350 people joined the exercise. The drill included personnel from: the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau; the Unitary Police Service; the Public Security Police Force; the Judiciary Police; the Fire Service Bureau; and other public departments.
With this joint contingency drill, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau aimed to review and enhance the communication mechanism in the event of unexpected emergencies. Such communication mechanism was established between the Bureau and the city’s six gaming concessionaires and sub-concessionaires after the deadly shootings that occurred in casinos last year in, respectively, Manila, in the Philippines and in Las Vegas, in the United States of America.
The Bureau conducted a trial operation of the communication mechanism during the period of Typhoon Pakhar in August. The trial operation in August also aimed to assess the cooperation and coordination between, respectively, Bureau inspectors stationed at casinos, the Bureau itself, the police force and the gaming operators.
With the rapid development of the Macao gaming sector, the Bureau has been constantly enhancing its monitoring and management mechanism, in order to promote a healthy development of the sector. Starting from 2017, the Bureau introduced a complete review of the surveillance procedures at casinos; last week, the Bureau organised surveillance training sessions for its staff stationed at the city’s casinos.